If you are new to the forums, you must register a free account before you can post. The forums have a separate registration from the rest of www.chronofhorse.com, so your log in information for one will not automatically work for the other. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Chronicle of the Horse.

BackInTheSaddle74 I want to be like you.
Sitting here in a wheelchair with a range of motion brace since my unplanned dismount....small tibial plateau fracture....3 weeks ago and at least 3 more weeks to go. I know it's not much compared to what others have gone through but it feels like forever.

I went to see a new orthopedist on Tuesday and I was given a shocking tentative diagnosis that I don't feel comfortable talking about publicly. I am now waiting to see a specialist. I am trying to reach out to other members of our wonderful horse community and ask for your help. I am in a situation where I absolutely must find a home for my lovely horse (even if it is a lease), and I also need help from anyone who has an extra ear and would not mind having a pen pal or exchanging stories. I live 3,000 miles from my family and I live alone, among some other stresses. This is a very difficult and scary time for me and I am trying to reach out. Please help me if you can. Thank-you very much and thank-you for listening to me all this time. Hugs.

I went to see a new orthopedist on Tuesday and I was given a shocking tentative diagnosis that I don't feel comfortable talking about publicly. I am now waiting to see a specialist. I am trying to reach out to other members of our wonderful horse community and ask for your help. I am in a situation where I absolutely must find a home for my lovely horse (even if it is a lease), and I also need help from anyone who has an extra ear and would not mind having a pen pal or exchanging stories. I live 3,000 miles from my family and I live alone, among some other stresses. This is a very difficult and scary time for me and I am trying to reach out. Please help me if you can. Thank-you very much and thank-you for listening to me all this time. Hugs.

Where are you? Help comes better when the location of the horses is included.

I also live alone, far from any family. I stayed put and they all left. Today I had a fall which seems to have only sprained my MCL, but an MRI wasn't ordered. The knee is VERY unstable. If it doesn't improve on schedule, we'll do an MRI. I'm in a knee immobilizer from my groin to my ankle, and the hip on the other side is excruciatingly painful. Right now, I simply cannot walk. Problem is that two doctors at the ER suggested possible referred pain in the hip from back arthritis and an old L3 wedge fracture. If that's the case, and not just terribly abused muscles from the fall, I'm pretty nearly up a creek, because that is not a very treatable condition. Honestly, I simply cannot do everything involved in solo horse care at the moment; if things don't get better FAST, I too will be looking for new places for my three. I may be able to place everyone but the 28 yo blind, deaf mare who has had trouble with the heat this summer.

My problems have never been bones, but I do seem to have fragile tendons and ligaments, as this kind of "accident" has occurred multiple times. Yet no one at all has suggested looking to see if there is evidence of some kind of connective tissue disease.

Do humans get spinal stenosis?

Sorry to hijack, but I wanted to emphasize and sympathize. And I'd be happy to be part of your support team if you will be part of mine.

VR - I am sorry to hear you are also having knee issues. Did you get a definitive diagnosis yet? Are you weight-bearing now? If you are looking into connective tissue disease, have you seen a specialist or are you trying to? An orthopedist in my experience, will be useless when it comes to that.
And of course I would love to be part of your support network! Have your riding goals or how you relate to horses changed since your injury? Where do you see yourself in 1,2, and 5 years from now?

May I join your group? I may be a bit of a fraud, I feel I am in much better shape than most
Arthritic knees and feet, okay for riding with pain killers. But I fell off my mounting block last week, and tore the ligaments in my left ankle. It swelled up like a water-filled balloon. Physio helped, and I am able to ride, but mostly at a walk. It starts to get too painful if I do too much. Probably be 6 - 8 weeks before it is completely right.

I've been too discouraged to write much lately, but I wanted to say that I am seeing a new (referred) doctor this week and that I have been working through the pain and showing some small improvements piece by piece, provided I stay within a very confined existence. I have been able to add on slowly each week. The problem is that whenever I make improvement, it is yanked away and I am worse than I was before, only to get less better than my best before. So, I am scared to say I am doing "better", as the cycle worsens and worsens and I am scared of false hope. But I wanted to say that out of the past 30 days, today is the best one and the only one worth writing home about. I fearfully continue on with my saga with this glimmer of hope. I try to resist it and resist thinking about the future and have learned to deal with each day as it comes. Bless you all and I hope you are doing well. Thanks for listening.

I sprained my bad ankle last night. Not badly, but bad enough. I went to get the mail and stepped on a bunch of sweet gum sticker balls in bare feet. It wasn't just a quick pop to the side, it rolled all over for a couple seconds. It's pretty sore today, but at least not too swollen.

Completely unrelated, I had an appointment this morning for maintenance on my neck/shoulder and the doc gets looking the chart and decides I may have torn my rotator cuff and wants an MRI. Great.

His tentative diagnosis, to be confirmed with MRI on August 9th, is an ACL tear along with a torn meniscus. If it's just ACL, and it's not completely gone, surgery is probably not indicated. I will just learn to live with it again and get a good knee brace and PT. If it's meniscus, then surgery.

Sigh! ER doctor thought it might just be an MCL problem that would resolve itself with time. Knee has tightened up considerably since the injury, though. It's only popped out once since the accident; and the displacement when it's pushed to the inside is nowhere near as acute.

Having stuff left over from previous surgeries and injuries is extremely helpful. I have an iceman pump which I've been using on my knee and it still works after ten years and helps tremendously. But I've been noticing today that without the knee immobilizer my other knee (site of previous ACL replacment) is not happy being the "good" knee. I suppose I've protected it some over the years by using the current "bad" knee without knowing it.

I'm going to search my closet and see if I can find the knee brace that I used before, because even if it doesn't fit perfectly, it will better than the immobilizer.

Trying to look on the bright side, though. I will be getting shoulder PT right along with knee PT. This is from an old rotator cuff surgery that didn't go well.

....

I just had knee surgery a month ago for knee issues that I have had pretty much since I was an early teenager. Got told back then to come back "when I was crawling". So, I pretty much did just that.

The pictures my surgeon took while in there were pretty interesting and would have been cool if they had belonged to someone else! I have Hoffas Disease, chondromalacia patella, arthritis, tendonitis and exposed/worn bone. So, I had the fat pad debrided and the calcified/pinching spots removed, tidied up some rough arthritic spots, debrided the kneecap.... fun fun!

All in all, its not been too bad. FAR less painful than I thought it would have been. The worst part is the stiffness and full feeling that it has all the time. I was followed up with a cortisone shot and have to go back for an intrarticular shot of a HA type synovial fluid replacer. I really didn't think my knees were THAT bad! lol!!

Anyways, back riding and taking it easy for now. Doesn't feel too bad when in the saddle thank goodness! Just makes it awkward to handle my stallion as I always want to be 150% on the ball (as good as he is) and having to hand breed him while in a knee brace is NOT on my list of "fun and safe things to do". Can't wait till this feels more NORMAL!!!

o.k. I've scheduled my Knee replacement surgery for Sept 11th, 2012. I can't take the pain anymore, and I wanna keep riding for a long time, so it is time. Lets hope everything goes well & I heal quickly! J

Good luck with the surgery Jingo, I'll be following with interest, as I know I'll be doing the replacement in the future.

I should be recovering from arthroscopic repair of my knee this evening, but got bumped back a week, good job to, I have so much yard work outstanding, so now I get a weeks grace to get it all squared away before having a few days off

o.k. I've scheduled my Knee replacement surgery for Sept 11th, 2012. I can't take the pain anymore, and I wanna keep riding for a long time, so it is time. Lets hope everything goes well & I heal quickly! J

Good luck with the surgery, Jingo-ace. You'll be back in the saddle before you know it. I am taking my two replaced knees and two replaced hips and competing in a NATRC trail ride this coming weekend. I'll be riding for all of us in the "Trashed Knee and Ankle Brigade".

Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway. (John Wayne)

Good luck with the surgery, Jingo-ace. You'll be back in the saddle before you know it. I am taking my two replaced knees and two replaced hips and competing in a NATRC trail ride this coming weekend. I'll be riding for all of us in the "Trashed Knee and Ankle Brigade".

Thanks!!!! And, yeah, I'll be riding with ya! Love those NATRC rides! Have a good safe ride for me, k?

I have 2 pretty fit horses, 2 retirees & 1 pony... so I am hoping to have someone come turnout or lunge the 2 fit ones, & groom/flyspray the other three at least twice a week for about 6 weeks.... I am hoping (crossing my fingers!) that I'll be able to crawl on one of the retirees at 6 weeks, & take back my two fit boys at 8 weeks..... at least, that's my plan. I wanna RIDE 'til I'm 93!

Okay, a bit of good news: the drop foot has begun moving! Just a tiny amount, but every few days it moved just a hair more. The surgeon said it should now show some very gradual improvement, and where it is in 16-18 months will be as good as it will get.

It's funny, just 1 cm of movement makes a huge difference with walking (of course I still have the AFO in my shoe).

They gave me a smaller knee brace three weeks ago, and that has also made a world of difference. It still has support bars on both slides. Holy shit is neoprene a nightmare in August!

Slow and steady. Still a long way to go, but my gosh what a difference.

Deuces, I also strongly recommend the cryo cuff, I have the breg polar care. I had knee surgery just a bit under 3 weeks ago and lived in it for the first week. My husband was making daily trips to the store for 20 pounds of ice but it was worth it, it made a huge difference in my pain levels! Also make sure you stay ahead of the pain, it is much easier than trying to play catch up. For the first 2-3 days I would set my alarm for the middle of the night dose to make sure I kept on top of it. If the meds aren't working or don't agree with your body don't be afraid to ask for a different med. I do not do well on most narcotics and we had to switch mine up because I was having reactions to the first one and I also asked for anti-nausea meds which helped a lot. Pain meds are not kind to your digestive system, be sure to eat lots of fruits and veggies or add in a fibre supplement and try to take the pain meds with food, even in the middle of the night. I had a little box of granola bars by my bed for the middle of the night pain med dose so I didn't have to bother my husband. If you are allowed to be up and about on crutches try to move a little bit each day, I was told bed rest for the first two days but it took me about four before I wanted to go any farther than the bathroom and back to bed. After four or five days I made it out to the kitchen and found that even non-weight bearing the movement helped clear out the swelling and icky feeling from being in bed for so long. Showering may be challenging, we only have the tub type shower so getting in and out was tricky. We thought afterwards that a shower chair would have been helpful so you may want to look into getting one, especially if you will be non-weight bearing for more than a few weeks. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions or just want to whine! It sucks being laid up especially the first week or so, I wished I hadn't of had the surgery most of the first week because at least before I was mostly functional and I felt so useless being laid up... I don't do stall rest well to say the least :P